Tasting Notes for Wines of the Year 2024

These tasting notes for Tom Cannavan’s Wines of the Year 2024 accompany our main Wines of the Year feature where Tom explains his choices.

Red Wine of The Year

(2024) What a fabulous sense of ripeness and completeness here, the colour is solid and the nose immediately soars from the glass. There is olive and tapenade, lots of herbal edges, but rich chocolaty berries too. Blackcurrant and glossy black cherry, so much luscious depth. The tannins are like melted chocolate, so deep, glossy and round, and a crisp acid edges into minerals and tart plum skins, all flooded with that sumptuous fruit. Such a harmonious wine, an absolutely glorious resolution that still has time on its side.

White Wine of The Year

(2024) Arguably the star of this year's selection, the always a gorgeous 'beautiful stones' is a single vineyard wine from the Gimblett Gravels, aged 10 months in various sizes of French barrel, 26% new oak. Subtle almond and crushed oatmeal over succulent quince and peach fruit, it has really delivered this vintage, the gorgeous texture, featherweight but insistent acidity and burgeoning sense of opulence always held in check. Terrific. No UK stockists listed for this vintage at time of review, but use the wine-searcher link below to see current availability.

Budget Red Wine of The Year

(2024) This unoaked blend of 50% Carignan, 23% Mourvèdre, 23% Grenache and 4% Syrah comes from 50-year-old vines in Boutenac, one of the prime terroirs of Corbières. It is certified organic. There's an interesting combination of fresh, pomegranate and cherry/floral aromas balanced by a deeper undercurrent of something plummy and black-fruited. In the mouth the flood of abundant sweet, fleshy and ripe black fruit fill the mid-palate, a real hedonistic mouthful of luscious and deep fruit. The tannins here are genuinely soft and silky, with the acid balancing nicely into a gentle, long finish.

Budget White Wine of The Year

(2024) With a huge total acidity of 8.2g/l this is as sharp as a tack, aromas of icing sugar and lime also have a ripeness to offset the crystalline precision. The palate has a sheer, bone-dry precision between its lemon and lime, taut fruit and shimmering acid length. Invigorating stuff, and rather fabulous. Price and stockist quoted at time of review are for a previous vintage.

Rosé Wine of The Year

(2024) From a single vineyard of 100-year-old vines, Garrus is fermented and aged in new French oak, but larger 600-litre barrels. There's an intensity here, dried apricot and an earthy, dried fig nuance over both small red berries and a creamy almond and nut husk background. In the mouth there is immense concentration. It's a rosé with real grip and purpose, and many layers of flavour and texture. Another convincing Garrus, with extract and phenolic that few achieve, but importantly, done with grace and elegance too.

Sweet Wine of The Year

(2024) From Rutherglen, this was bottled in 1975 but the label states the age of the wine as 'unkown'. Made from 'brown muscat'. The nose moves from grilled meats, to nuttiness, to cedar, to espresso to toffee. All the rancio characters are there, but so is luscious, ripe nectarine, the Muscovado sugar weight and richness is absolutely stunning. Super sweet, long, a bittersweet serious nuance to add to the fresh cut of the acidity. An amazing bit of Australian history drinking so beautifully.

Sparkling Wine of The Year

(2024) For me, the best vintage so far of one of Nyetimber's flagship vintage wines. Ambition in the English wine industry is a good thing surely, and companies like Nyetimber, who offer prestige cuvées at prices that edge toward Champagne's elite, have their heads well above the parapet. They are willing to be judged by what's in the bottle, and in this case it is an exceptionally fine sparkling wine from a single vineyard plot of Pinot Noir (73%) and Chardonnay planted on greensand. It spent a full five years on the lees, and was bottled with 9.5g/l of residual sugar. The colour has a hint of gold, the mousse is fine, and aromatically it flits between raspberry and nutty russet apples, yeasty autolysis and lime and lemon zestiness. On the palate there is that zippy, streaking freshness, but there is fruit sweetness too, quite intense, absolutely concentrated and direct, but the combination of the long ageing and thrilling acidity gives a long, energising finish.

Fortified Wine of The Year

(2024) There are tasting notes on just over 20,000 wines in wine-pages database. This wine is only the second to score a maximum 100 points. Why? The wine does not come from a solera, but is believed to be a single vintage wine. It was generously poured by a friend at a fine wine dinner who told me its story. The private cellar in Funchal of the late Gil Borges Acciaioly was inherited by his sons. This wine, finally bottled some time in the 1940s or 50s, is believed to have been stored in sealed glass demi-johns after its long barrel ageing, which will have helped preserve it. It is made from Terrantez and, dating from 223 years ago, becomes the oldest wine I have tasted by some 80 years. The colour is nut brown, and the impression is of such soulful, dark and polished aromas, followed by a palate that sparks into vibrant life, plenty of pin-sharp acidity to complement the aged richness, with literally perfect balance and length. I did not write formal notes - I decided just to enjoy the moment in this surely once in a lifetime experience. The last bottle I can find that was sold at auction fetched £2,600, but that was in 2017. I believe if a bottle appears on the market today, a price of around $20,000 is expected. An extraordinary experience and such a generous sharing of a wine.

Extra choice

(2024) A blend of the two vintages 1934 (around 30%) and 1952 (around 60%), probably bottled in the 1980s. Fabulous, mature toffee and toast, walnuts and beautiful palate sweetness. Some lovely leaf tea notes. Possibly made from Semillon, commonly known as Madeira at the time. Just beautifully luscious and sweet, but with still thrilling acidity. What a treat.

Dud of the Year

(2024) A Vin de France wine with 12.5% alcohol, this has a moderately pale peachy-pink colour. The aroma is a touch sherbetty, with a fairly neutral raspberry note. It's a little bit rough this, with tutti fruitti flavours and some sweetness and rather raw acidity. Not a big fan of this one personally. £7.99 mixed six and Scottish price.

Go to the Wines of the Year 2024 main feature.

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